He sat leaning against the rough rock wall of the tunnel. The shells would hit and the entire world shake and he sat there. Not even the puddle of piss from the soldier beside him fazed him.

I held out the remnants of the ration cube and he grabbed at it with a gauntleted fist, not even bothering to look up at me. Just more dead kids he’d called us.

“What makes you so special?” I asked, keeping my grip on the cube.

His gauntlet shook but not for any orbital bombardment.

“Don’t play with me kid.”

“Why? You gonna let me die too old man?”

“I’m not old.”

I laughed. My first laugh since I’d been shoved into a shuttle and told to shoot at an enemy I’d never even seen. The laughing hurt and my chest ached deep in my own armour. I let the ration cube fall to the dirt but he didn’t reach for it.

“You’re a fucking dinosaur old man."

“Shut it.”

“You’re so fucking old you’ve got…”

“I said shut it.”

He was looking at me now. So were the other soldiers. His eyes weren’t like mine. I wanted to hate him because he had something we never would.

“We’re better than you,” I said. “We’re younger and fitter and stronger and you’re sitting here while my brothers are dying.”

“You’re kids.”

“I’m a man!”

He laughed now and it wasn’t like mine. It wasn’t like any of us. It was deep. He laughed and his eyes laughed with him. I’d never seen that before. Did they teach him that or could he learn on his own.

“Yeah.” He shifted against the rock, the plates of his armour scraping. “Don’t know how to live though do you.”

I ran a hand over the top cover of my weapon. The others were still watching. Even the piss-soaked ones were waiting, waiting to hear some little bit of hope that they might live to be the same age.

Not that any of us would.

Not that any of us could.

“You’re selfish,” I said because it was the only thing I could. The others all nodded and he noticed.

“Fuck off.”

“Why do you get to live?”

“Because I have more reason to!”

He exploded from the ground. His boot left a divot in the hard rock as the servos kicked in, propelling him upwards and forwards into me. We pressed against the rock, his strength crushing me against the far wall.

His face was searching my own.

“You have nothing,” he said. His words were quiet, meant just for me.

“I have…”

“Nothing.”

He eased up on the pressure and I pushed him back. “I have my mission.”

“Fuck the mission. That’s why you’re all dying.”

“Why?”

I asked it in the voice of every kid in the tunnel. He turned, looking up and down at the rows of eager soldiers.

“Why do you want to fight?”

“To complete the mission.”

“Why do you want to fight?” he asked again.

“So we win.”

“Why do you want to fight?!” His voice was only anger and I looked away. The others shook their heads when I turned to them.

“I don’t know.”

“They made you to fight,” he said. “To win a war because there aren’t enough natural-born bastards like me left to fight it. But I’m not here to win.”

“Why are you here?” one of the others asked. The dirt beneath him had soaked up most of the piss.

“I’m here so we don’t lose. I have a kid. She’s in here somewhere, in one of the deep shelters. I’m doing this for her, for all of them.” He turned back to me. “So fuck the mission. You have nothing worth fighting for because they never gave you anything worth losing.”

“I don’t care if I die.” I wanted to be proud of the words, strong in the knowledge I could give everything, but the words felt hollow.

“You should,” he said. He reached down, picking up the ration cube and wiping at the dust with one hand. “Because it means more civilians will die. Next time you’re on a ration-run, talk to them.”

A laugh echoed in the tunnel. I didn’t look away from the old man though. “Why?” I asked.

“Because they don’t care that you’re a kid.”

“No?”

He ripped the cube in half, popping one of the smaller chunks in his mouth. He chewed noisily.

“No,” he said. “They see you as a son. A brother. A father. That’s what will get you through all of this; family.”

“What if they think we’re going to die too?”

He held out the other half of the cube. I took it back, glad for the extra rations. His fist didn’t let go though, only this time it wasn’t because he demanded answers like I had. He put a hand against my elbow and I felt both of my years fold beneath his two decades.

“They’re all worried we’re going to die. It just means we’ve gotta do the best with what time we have.”

I took a small bite of the cube and tossed it to the next soldier in turn. After a time the orders came and this time we didn’t fight to kill. We fought to live.

I have been twisting a race story around in the back of my head for a few days, and your story is way too similar to what I was going for. Now I'll have to wait a while. (Not that I was ready to start typing away in either case....)

I’ve been trying to write things that aren’t sci-fi for a while. Mostly it ends up being rubbish because I just can’t do normalcy, so I’ve tried to a bit more fantasy or mythology. This was a quick one based on something I remember watching or reading, can’t remember. Kept the what light and tried to focus on the why. Maybe it worked, maybe it’s just too short.

As per the novelisation it's actually a mobile oil refinery. Crude oil is collected from a colony world and processed en route back to Earth. That's why there's the succession of larger explosions at the end.

As such, the colony worlds appear to be little more than oil producers set up on the Company dime.

The rooftop was quiet. No sirens, no helicopters flying about. For the first time in a very long time, there was nothing and I felt exactly the same way. Syndrome shuffled his feet behind me in the loose dirt of the rooftop.

"I'm not here to cause trouble Gam."

The edge had been calling to me for a while now. Between my legs I could see the world far below. Everyday, those people watched me at my best and now they didn't even glance when I was at my worst.

"Are you out?" Sin asked.

"No. Yes. I don't know."

"Is it me?"

I looked at him over my shoulder. His costume was fluttering in the wind. His wrung his hands in front of him but couldn't look at me.

"No," I said.

"I know we're not friends." I couldn't help but roll my eyes as he began talking. "But it's not like there's many others like us. It can be hard, talking. Me, I've got anonymity. I went home with this broad and spent the night just talking to her. Poured my heart out. But you? You have to live this 24/7."

"What do you want Sin?"

"To tell you, if you need it, and I'm not saying you do, but if you need do, I can listen."

"To what?"

"To whatever it is that's doing this to you."

"You. You did this to me."

Sin stepped closer. My hands balled into fists, the cold rush of power crawling beneath my skin until the hairs stood on edge.

"I've been doing this a long time. We both have Gam. And you've never gone away like this before. So what's changed?"

"Nothing."

"Something must have..." Sin began but I couldn't help it. I hit the ledge of the rooftop, cracking the concrete and sending a small spiral of dust spiralling downwards.

"Nothing!" I shouted. "Nothing has changed and that's what people don't get. Not them, not you. No-one."

He moved quietly. It was why I hated him. All the fights, all the scrapes, he could come and go like a cat. Constantly my nerves were on a hair-trigger. The whole time he'd been on the rooftop, he'd dragged his feet purely so I could hear him but now when I looked up he was sat beside me.

He'd left an arms width between us, his own legs dangling over the side. I could push him, right now, and be done with it. Instead I put my head in my hands and cried.

"I've always been this way," I said.

"Depressed?"

I nodded. "Since I was a teenager. Before I even knew what I was. I deal with it."

"Alone?"

"Of course." Not just a simple yes. Not an 'unfortunately so'. I dealt with my problem because it was my problem, so of course I'd deal with it alone.

"I'm not gonna pretend I know what it's like," Sin said. He was still wringing his hands, not looking at me. "But I can listen?"

I wanted him to strike at me. Just give me an excuse to fall. Never this though. I sat and listened to the silence of a city that didn't need me.

"It's a hole," I said. "In my dreams, my nightmares. A pit and one I've dug for myself. I'm just walking around it, constantly, around and around. Sometimes, if I'm not careful, I slip on the edge and nearly go in. Sometimes, if I've had a bad fay, I fall."

I paused but Sin said nothing. He was watching me though, his hands motionless in the corner of my eye.

"I fall into the pit. It's deep and cold. I panic. I fucking panic man. I'm clawing at the walls and I haul myself out of there quick as I can and sit on the top panting. And then... I start walking again. Around and around. The same old routine.

"The next time I fall in though I hit the dirt hard. I'm lying on my back and I'm looking up at this ugly grey sky in a tiny circle and I think, why bother. Why get up again if I'm just going to end up back here. And that's where I stay. That's where I am now Sin. I'm dead at the bottom of a pit."

"Nobody dies alone." Sin's voice was quiet. It took me a moment to realise he'd disabled the modulator strapped around his throat; without it he sounded... normal. "It was something my grandpa said. Nobody dies alone, when we go, a piece of everyone who knows us dies as well."

"Nobody knows me."

"I do."

"The hell d'you know me."

"I know you're a good man. I know anything I say right now is probably meaningless, but that doesn't change the fact. I'm not going to leave you, even if you push my face through this rooftop."

"Why?"

"Because if you die, I'm gonna need a new heart."

"Sin..."

"And you deserve better. You deserve more than I can offer." He held up a hand before I could even protest. "If you're in this pit I can't pull you out. But I can drop a rope. I can wait at the top. I'll wait as long as it takes."

"A rope?"

"It was your metaphor," he said.

I smiled. It was brief but real.

I sat. I don't know for how long but the city grew dark. Syndrome didn't leave me. Every now and then he'd tell an old story. The pit was still just as deep but now, when I looked up at that ugly grey sky, I could see a rope, hanging down the side.

With one hand, the skin burning with all the powers I'd developed, I took a hold of the end.

This story is so good. This is the fifth time I've come back to reread it. I would like to say thank you for your excellent writing being free to read on the internet. Thank you for this story and your others.

If I didn't put my stories online they'd just sit on my hard drive. If they sat on my hard drive I'd never get any feedback, and it's feedback that makes me get better each time (hopefully). I'm glad you enjoyed it.

This is powerful. The only thing I recommend, if I may, is to change commissary to "mess". A commissary is a grocery store, and they aren't found aboard ships. A mess is a dining room. Also, typically, officers would eat separately from enlisted in a wardroom. But on a corvette, and for this story, it works to just have a single mess. Great work!

Gah, chalk this one up to my lack of experience with the subject. And yeah, I changed from a big ship to a little one so I could find an excuse for them all to eat together. Glad you enjoyed the story in spite of the issues :)